


Zexal

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Yuma is a Girl [13]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 06:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12103098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: Yuma turns and sees a robot streaking towards her. She puts both hands over her key and jumps to the side—the robot misses her, but turns around with clawed arms outstretched. Yuma recognizes the robot, it belongs to Kite.





	Zexal

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Zexal rewrite that I started for Zexal month on tumblr--an AU in which, first and foremost, Yuma is a girl. Always a girl, born with a V, the whole nine yards. Why? Because the idea wouldn't leave me alone. So [I drew it](http://rainbow-galaxy-supernova.tumblr.com/post/164290621451/zexal-month-day-13-yuma-day-something-ive-been), and I started writing it, and I ran with it.
> 
> This is my rewrite of episodes 22-24

Lillybot hands Yuma her lunch as she dashes out the door. “Thank you, Lilly!” Yuma calls, leaping off the steps and landing on her skateboard. She can count on one hand the number of times she’s been early or even on-time to school lately, and once again, she’s running late. Once again though, it was Astral’s fault. He had just that morning told Yuma that he believes once all his memories are retrieved, the airship will be made whole and be able to fly.

“How?!” Yuma had shrieked as she fell off her hammock. “It’s inside the key!”

“I believe your key is a dimensional portal,” Astral had said.

“Well for god’s sake,” Yuma grumbled, picking herself up, “I hope the ship doesn’t come busting out when I’m indoors, I assume it would be massive!”

Yuma grips the key tightly in her fist as she speeds down the sidewalks. These are mad times she lives in.

 

 

“It’s a safety hazard!” Takashi insists as he points at Yuma’s key, blocking her from jumping into the pool.

Yuma knocks his hand away. “Watch yourself, it looks like you’re pointing at my boobs.”

Takashi blushes and sputters, “You can’t distract me, Yuma! You should leave it off in the pool.”

“You of all people should know why I can’t just leave it my locker,” Yuma says. “Astral lives in here! What if someone steals it?”

“It’ll be safe,” Takashi insists, “You have a combination for a reason.”

Yuma grumbles and stomps back to the locker room. She takes the key off her neck, then hesitates. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and she whirls around. She’s alone, but she feels like she’s being watched.

 _‘Kite,’_ she thinks. She bets the perv is spying on her. She grips the key and stuffs it down the front of her swimsuit.

“Suck it, onion-head,” she whispers, strutting back to the pool. It’s a little uncomfortable, swimming with the key pressed against her sternum, but she like that she knows exactly where it is.

The feeling of being watched stays with Yuma for the rest of the day, but every time she looks around, she doesn’t see anything strange. Maybe she’s just being paranoid, but she grips the key tightly and keeps her guard up.

As she’s leaving school, Yuma finally starts to relax. She actually feels safe in public, because there’s so many people around. Surely, nothing bad will happen.

“Yuma, look out!” Ryoga suddenly yells from behind her.

Yuma turns and sees a robot streaking towards her. She puts both hands over her key and jumps to the side—the robot misses her, but turns around with clawed arms outstretched. Yuma recognizes the robot, it belongs to Kite.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Yuma screams, her hands over her key. People on the street stop and turn to her, confused. Kotori and Tetsuo run to Yuma’s side, and Yuma takes one hand off her key to point at the robot. “HELP!” She screams, “IT’S STALKING ME!”

The robot looks around, sees people taking notice, and quickly reaches out to grab the cord around Yuma’s neck. Yuma does the only thing she can think to do—she shrieks. Loudly, wordless, at the top of her pitch range, she shrieks. She sounds like she’s being murdered, and she refuses to let go of the key. Yuma feels the cord slip away, but the robot takes off, and the key is still safely in Yuma’s grasp.

A half-dozen adults start to rush towards Yuma, all looking positively flabbergasted. Ryoga gets to her first, elbowing past Kotori and Tetsuo to grab Yuma by the shoulders.

“What was that?” Ryoga demands. “Did you know that thing?”

Yuma slumps against his chest, and she tucks her hand—the one still holding the key—under her chin. “It wanted my key, it wanted Astral,” She whispers.

The adults, business people in suits and dresses, safe and responsible, surround Yuma, asking if she’s okay. One man gets out his phone and Yuma hears him say, “Hello? Police? I just witnessed a girl being assaulted by a rogue robot.”

An older woman gently touches Yuma’s arm. “Here sweetie, come sit down.”

Ryoga and the older woman guides Yuma to a nearby bench and steady her as her knees buckle. She holds a hand to her head—she’s shaking. Kotori sits next to Yuma and gives her a water bottle. Ryoga sits on Yuma’s other side, and Tetsuo stands a few inches away, looking around as if expecting the robot to come back. Yuma’s never been so grateful to have them by her side.

“Young lady,” the man on his phone says, leaning towards Yuma, “Do you want to file a police report?”

Yuma nods, though she doubts it’ll do much good. The adults linger, now talking amongst themselves about how they had never seen a robot act in such a way before. One woman takes out a magazine from her purse and uses it to fan Yuma a bit. Yuma knows she looks positively ashen, and when the police pull up they take one look at her and ask if she needs to go to the hospital.

“She’ll be alright,” Ryoga says quickly, “She just needs to go home, I think. It was quite shocking.”

The police officers take statements from the witnesses, including Ryoga, Kotori, and Tetsuo. Yuma’s begun to shiver by then, and one of the police officers says she must be going into shock.

“It’s alright, miss,” he says, “We’re going to do our best to track down this robot. Do you have any idea if anyone might want to hurt you?”

Yuma shakes her head. Kotori opens her mouth, and Ryoga reaches behind Yuma’s back, seemingly to pat her shoulder, but he pinches Kotori’s arm warningly. No one mentions that the robot was trying to steal the key.

The police officers end up driving Yuma home. Her friends want to go with her, but she mumbles that she wants to be alone. She rides in the front seat while one officer sits in the back. Akari looks momentarily floored when she finds Yuma on the front steps flanked by police, but the officers explain that a rogue robot attacked Yuma for an unknown reason. Akari thanks the police for taking care of Yuma, and they promise Yuma to let her know if they uncover anything about the robot. Yuma collapses on the sofa, but even in her own house she feels like she’s still being watched.

“Heavens, first robbery with robots and now assault?” Grandma says as she hands Yuma a cup of tea and shakes her head. “What some people won’t do.”

“You gonna be alright, kiddo?” Akari asks, placing her hand on Yuma’s forehead. “You’re all clammy.”

“I think I want to lie down,” Yuma says.

Akari nods. “Finish your tea first. And stay in your bed, please, I don’t want you fainting on the way up the ladder to the attic.”

Yuma nods and takes her mug of tea to her room. As soon as she shuts the door, she leaves the mug on her dresser and crawls under the covers. She holds the key to her mouth, closes her eyes, and whispers, “Astral, please come out.”

When she opens her eyes, Astral is lying next to her. “That was frightening,” he says. He looks as shaken as Yuma imagines she does. “And I have no doubt that it was Kite’s doing.”

Yuma clenches her hand around the key. “He tried to take this.”

Astral shakes his head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. I’ve never wished so badly to be something corporeal. I know what that key is to you, I don’t want Kite to take something your father gave you.”

“Idiot,” Yuma mumbles, “I don’t want to lose the key just because dad gave it to me. I was worried sick about losing you, too.”

Astral’s eyes widen. He blinks rapidly a few times, and then he smiles. “Well, I am still here.”

Yuma closes her eyes. “Don’t go back in the key, even if I go to sleep.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Astral says.

 

* * *

 

Orbital zooms into the lab, frantic, and locks the door behind itself.

“That was quick,” Kite says.

The robot jumps. “That g-g-girl is a terror!” It squeaks, “She s-screamed so loud she j-jammed my systems!”

Kite frowns. “Do you have the key?”

“N-n-no,” Orbital admits, “B-but I got a c-complete scan of it!”

Kite rolls his eyes. “Pathetic,” he says. “You couldn’t steal a trinket from a little girl?”

Orbital flails its arms around. “There were p-p-people everywhere! I t-tried to steal the key during the day b-but the girl shoved it down her—”

“I don’t care,” Kite snaps. “Let’s see these scans and find out if they can tell us anything about the key.”

Orbital manages to create a 3D-rendering of the Key, and it goes over the molecular scans. “Th-there’s a gravitational f-force with in the k-k-key!” It exclaims.

“A portal?” Kite asks.

“P-possibly,” Orbital says.

“Hack it,” Kite orders. “Recreate that portal for me, here and now.”

If robots could sweat, Orbital would be dripping with it. The robot types away, going so fast that it begins to overheat. “We need p-power of some kind,” it says.

Kite looks the robot over. “Use some of your Barian crystal.”

The robot whimpers, but does as ordered. With a flash of light, a spiraling vortex opens up in the lab.

“It w-worked!” Orbital cries, leaning back.

Kite takes a few steps back. “Let’s test it,” he says calmly, and he takes off running into the vortex as Orbital screams his name.

 

* * *

 

Yuma sleeps for an hour before she wakes up, cold, alone, with a dreadful sense that something is terribly wrong. She shoots upright, key still clutched in her hand, and she looks around the room. Astral isn’t there, despite his promise that he would be, and Yuma knows Astral enough to know that he wouldn’t break his promise. She holds the key to her mouth and whispers,

“Astral, talk to me.”

There’s silence.

A chill goes through Yuma—a feeling she hasn’t had since she found out that her parents were missing. This time though, she’s in a position to do something about it, because she knows who is to blame for this. She leaps to her feet and dashes to her laptop. She fumbles for the cord that connects her duel disk to her computer and plugs it in, and she lays one card on the disk’s card reader—Number 34, Terror-Byte.

Yuma doesn’t know how she’s so confident that this is going to work, but the disk lights up, and a little Terror-Byte sprite appears on her computer screen.

“Astral’s in trouble,” Yuma whispers to the sprite. “I need you to find the robot that attacked us this afternoon, and track it down.”

Later, Yuma will wonder if she dreamed this whole thing. She guides the sprite on her computer screen through dozens of security cameras, through public photos, and through satellite images, until the last image of that robot is pulled up on the screen, disappearing into a warehouse down by the bay.

“Gotcha,” Yuma hisses. She grabs her phone and hopes Ryoga hasn’t changed his number.

The phone rings twice before he picks up. “Do you know what time it is?”

Yuma tucks the phone against her shoulder. “Astral’s gone,” She tells Ryoga, ignoring his question, “And I know it’s Kite’s fault.” She grabs a necklace from her dresser, threads the charm off of it, and hangs the key from the chain instead.

“So what are you going to do?” Ryoga asks.

“Remember the warehouse at the bay?” Yuma asks, pocketing her deck and disconnecting her duel disk from her computer. “The sonuvabitch is hiding out there, meet me at the gate I need backup.” And she ends the call, hoping he’ll be chivalrous enough not to let her go in alone. She puts the key around her neck, dashes up to the attic, flings open a trunk and grabs a bag of stuff from her duel gang days. Then she opens the attic window, slips out onto the roof, and climbs down the wall using the crumbling foot-holes she can navigate so well. With any luck, grandma and Akari will never know she was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

Astral stands, confused, in front of the airship. A moment ago, he was lying beside Yuma and watching her sleep. How did he get here?

Astral feels a chill go through his body and he turns. Something coming towards him. No, not something, someone.

“Kite,” Astral says as the figure approaches.

“How do you know my name?” Kite demands.

Astral narrows his eyes. “I dueled you before. With Yuma.”

Kite smirks. “The messenger of Astral world attached itself to that crude child?”

“Don’t insult Yuma,” Astral snaps, “She is a better human than you can hope to be. You steal souls along with Numbers.”

“I take what I need for my family,” Kite snaps, “What do you need Numbers for?”

Astral stiffens. “They contain my memories. I need them to—”

“I don’t care,” Kite interrupts. “I’ll be taking your Numbers.”

Astral frowns. “No, you won’t.”

Kite chuckles. “You don’t sound confident. Duel me, and we’ll see who wins the right to have the Numbers.”

 

* * *

 

When Yuma hung up on Ryoga, she figured he’d want to tag along just to make sure she was okay. What Yuma didn’t count on and absolutely didn’t want was for Ryoga to call the rest of the crew.

“I don’t believe I ordered the cavalry,” Yuma says, glaring at Ryoga as her younger friends dash up behind him.

“Is it true that Astral is missing?” Kotori asks.

“Just who is Astral, and who is Kite?” Ryoga asks.

Yuma sighs. “Astral is a naked, dueling spirit from another world who came to earth to complete a mission from his home planet, but he doesn’t remember what that mission is and he needs to gather numbers cards which contain his memories. Kite is a psychotic, BDSM-obsessed, Sailor Moon-wannabe Numbers hunter who has it out for me and Astral. The robot that attacked me this afternoon belonged to him, and since it was attacked by Kite’s robot and now mere hours after Kite set his robot on me Astral is missing, I can only logically conclude that Kite did something to _make_ Astral go missing!”

Ryoga blinks at her. “That is, surprisingly, not the weirdest sequence of things you’ve ever told me. So what now?”

“Now get them out of here!” Yuma shrieks, pointing at her friends.

“Not a chance,” Tetsuo says.

Yuma throws her hands up. “Oh to hell with everything, if we all die at least we’ll die together!”

“D-die?” Takashi asks quietly.

Yuma throws down her bag and drags from it a bolt cutter and a pack of gum. She chews the gum and sneaks around a nearby wall, holding up her hand to keep her friends from following. She spots a security camera, takes a deep breath, and spits the gum as far as she can. The gum lands on the camera lens.

“Bullseye,” Yuma crows. She walks under the camera, gets on her tiptoes, and pushes the gum until it covers the whole lens.

“How the hell did you spit it that far?” Ryoga asks.

Yuma picks up the bolt cutters and walks up to the chain-link fence to start cutting. “Red taught me a few tricks.”

“Since when do you have a bolt cutter?” Tokunosuke asks.

“It was a birthday present,” Yuma says. She cuts a hole in the gate, and slips through. She and Ryoga peel the chain-link back to create a big enough opening for everyone to get through, and Yuma takes off to the center of the warehouse grounds.

“How do you know where to go?” Kotori calls.

“I just know!” Yuma says. Her deck box is burning hot, and she wonders if Astral is dueling.

The central building is huge, with a giant metal door that slides shut. Yuma runs around until she finds a keypad. She narrows her eyes at the keypad, and starts pressing at it randomly. “Yoo-hoo, pizza delivery!” She yells.

Her friends catch up to her. “Please tell me that’s not your plan?” Ryoga asks.

“Of course not,” Yuma scoffs. “Now step back.” She takes a pair of rubber gloves from her bag and puts them on, and then she grabs the bolt cutter and plunges it, point-first, into the keypad. Yuma leaps back and covers her head as a small explosion sends bits of metal flying. When the smoke clears, the guts of the keypad are pouring out of a hole in the wall.

“Huh,” says Yuma, “I didn’t think that would actually work.”

Ryoga glares at her. “You are actually crazy, aren’t you?”

Yuma, rubber gloves still on, approaches the smoking hole to check the wires. “I wonder if I can hotwire this shit and open the door…”

“Oh, let me try!” Takashi cries, rushing forward. “I’ve always wanted to try this.”

Yuma gives him a shocked look. “Oh no, I’ve turned you into a delinquent too!”

“It’s for Astral,” Takashi says, taking Yuma’s gloves and putting them on, “It doesn’t count.”

Yuma and Takashi play around with the wires until the doors slide open a third of the way, and they all dash inside.

“See, you couldn’t have done it without us!” Takashi says gleefully.

“What if the doors shut before we leave?” Cathy calls as Yuma races ahead.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it!” Yuma yells back. She twists her arm around her back, reaches into a side-pocket of her backpack, and pulls something out. As the group round a corner, two giant robots appear. Yuma shrieks, puts her hands out in front of herself, and one of the robots starts jerking uncontrollably. The other robot looks at Yuma, then turns around and scuttles away.

“What the heck?” Tokunosuke asks as he runs up.

Yuma looks at him. “Um…always carry a taser?” She says, holding up the taser that she used on the first robot.

“How did you…” Ryoga starts, but he throws up his hands. “Never mind. There’s still a robot on the loose, you go ahead and we’ll see if we can keep it away from you.”

Yuma looks over her friends. “If it gets to be too much, do anything you can to get out.” She hands Ryoga her backpack full of delinquent stuff, but she keeps the taser. “I love you guys!” she screams as she races away.

Yuma can’t explain how she knows which way to go, but she hangs a right, down a set of emergency stairs. Alarms wail, and Yuma keeps running until she gets to the basement, and another huge door.

“Fuck,” she hisses. Her bolt cutters are with Ryoga. She rushes to a keypad and slams her fist on it. A password screen pops up. Yuma aims the taser at the keypad and fires. The screen fizzles, a myriad of pictures flash across it, most of them of a little boy with blue hair, and then the screen goes black. Yuma grits her teeth and yanks the taser back. Before Yuma can do anything else, the doors fly open, and a robot scoots out, screaming at the top of its pitch range.

“YOU CRUDE LITTLE GIRL! GET OUT OF HERE!” A robot half the size of Yuma screams.

Yuma hides the taser behind her back. She recognizes the robot that assaulted her this afternoon, but now it looks decidedly less scary.

“DUEL ME NOW!” The robot demands. Appendages pop out from its body, and Yuma yanks the taser out from behind her back and aims it at the soft, unprotected parts of the robot that have just been exposed. The robot lets out a screech and falls, twitching, to the floor.

Yuma drops the taser and races through the still-open doors. “HUNK OF JUNK!” She screams at the robot. She slams her fist on a button she hopes is for the doors, and she’s right. The doors slam shut, and she turns around to find herself in something that looks like it came out of a sci-fi movie.

There’s a goddamn vortex in the middle of the room—a spinning mass of black lightning that is sucking air into it. Yuma gapes at it for a second, then shakes herself and looks around the room for Kite or Astral. She sees a bunch of computers, holoscreens, point-objects, a hospital table (what is Kite in to?!) and in the middle of the room is…

Yuma’s hand flies to her neck and she grips the key. She definitely still has it, so what is that thing?

‘Astral,’ she thinks desperately, ‘I want to help you.’

There’s a flash of white light and Yuma finds herself standing on a crumbling ledge, facing a huge door that’s covered in chains.

“I’ve been here before,” Yuma blurts.

“You have a chance,” a deep voice says. “A chance to unlock great power, but that power comes with a price. You will have to give up that which is precious to you.”

Joke’s on the voice, Yuma already lost most of what’s precious to her, and this power will help her save one of the last things she considers precious—Astral.

“I’ll give you anything!” Yuma cries, “I just want to help Astral!”

“Then you need Zexal,” the voice says. “It is a force that will grant you the strength to face the coming danger. Do you accept?”

“I already told you, yes!” Yuma snaps. A wind rushes past her and she raises her arms to block it from her eyes. At once she’s back in the lab, staring down the vortex, but now she can hear something besides wind rushing past her ears—a voice, different from before.

“It’s hopeless,” the voice whispers. It’s Astral!

“ASTRAL!!” Yuma screams, tears stinging her eyes.

“Yuma?!” Says Astral’s voice, “Are you there?”

“I’m here!” She cries. “I’m trying to help you!”

“No!” Astral gasps, “Yuma, it’s too dangerous! You need to get yourself out of here!”

“Not without you!” Yuma says. She clutches her key. “I’ve told you before, you’re my friend, one of my best friends! I need you, I’m going to get you back, and I’m going to do it with Zexal!”

Astral pauses for a second. “You…know about Zexal?”

“Do you know what it is?” Yuma asks.

“I just heard the word ten seconds ago,” Yuma says. She almost feels like laughing—this is insanity. “It’s a power?”

“Yuma, it is an ancient power from my world,” Astral says. “If we go down this road, there is no going back.”

“Okay, enough with the cryptic bullshit!” Yuma screams. She takes a few steps back, and then she charges at the vortex. “KATTOBINGU!!” She screams as she leaps.

Yuma is enveloped in a red light. She flails, expecting to feel the swoop of her stomach as she freefalls into nothing, but gravity seems to have gone wonky. Yuma soars outward, then to the side, and then the black vortex fades and she finds herself staring at a barren landscape of white sand and deep, deep blue sky. Yuma veers to the right, and she sees a gigantic blimp. This must be the airship that Astral told her about! And there, on the top of the ship…

“ASTRAL!” Yuma screams. She can barely see him, but she can see the bright blue light that suddenly surrounds Astral, and she can hear him shout…

“I build the Overlay network, I overlay myself with Yuma!”

Astral soars upwards. Soon, he and Yuma are face to face and flying up, up, up…

“What’s happening?” Yuma asks.

Astral reaches for her. “It’s Zexal!” He shouts.

Yuma takes Astral’s hand, and the light surrounding their bodies combines. Everything goes white, and then there’s a roaring in Yuma’s ears. When the light and sound fades, she’s staring at Kite, and he’s looking at her in shock. Yuma blinks, and she suddenly becomes aware that she does not feel like herself. She looks down, and she lets out a scream.

“WHAT THE WHAT?!” She yelps, looking down at her hands—her hands which are now coated in white and red armor—and then the rest of her body—also coated in red and white armor—and, and…

Yuma squeaks. WHAT. THE HELL.

“ASTRAL?!” Yuma shouts.

“This is Zexal,” Astral’s voice says in her mind. “This is the power that we have been granted, the power to win this duel. We are one, Yuma.”

“Holy shit,” Yuma breathes. She looks up and she grins at Kite. “I’M GONNA KICK ASS!” She shouts.

Kite gives himself a shake. “Good luck,” he growls, “You only have two hundred life points left.”

That gives Yuma a shock, but she gets over it. “Two hundred is enough to give me a chance,” she tells him.

“Yuma,” Astral’s voice says, “Let me help you. Together, we can draw the exact card we need to win this duel.”

“Wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s happened today,” Yuma says. Her hand glows with golden light, and she reaches for her deck. “Kattobingu!” She yells again as she draws.

She draws Zexal Weapon, Unicorn Spear. It’s a card she’s never seen before in her life, so she has no idea how it ended up in her deck, but what the hell, right? She laughs. “This is amazing!”

She equips Unicorn Spear to Utopia, and Astral whispers the card’s effects in her ear. But Kite isn’t done with the two of them, and the duel ends in a draw.

When the smoke clears, Yuma is left staring Kite down. She frowns at him. “Why are you doing this?” She asks. “You’ve terrified me for days. You’re an older boy chasing a younger girl until she’s terrified. What does that say about you?”

Kite’s face twists. “I don’t care about you. I want Astral world’s emissary and the Numbers.”

“Why?” Yuma demands.

“His family,” Astral whispers. “He mentioned that he _needs_ Numbers for his family.”

“What happened to your family?” Yuma asks. She remembers the pictures that flashed across the holoscreen outside the lab. The little boy with blue hair and golden eyes.

“Is it your brother?” Yuma yells, “Is that who you want to help?”

Kite looks half shocked, half pained. Yuma takes a step towards him. “Tell me,” she pleads. She can feel the airship teetering, but she takes another step. “Maybe I can help! I don’t want anyone to suffer, I don’t want anyone to lose their souls for Numbers. Astral can take Numbers without taking souls, maybe he can help you, maybe I can help you.”

Kite leaps away. “There’s nothing anyone can do!” He screams.

Once more, white light flashes before Yuma’s eyes. When she opens them again, she’s back in the lab. Astral is by her side, and the building is shaking something fierce.

“We have to get out of here,” Yuma says.

“There’s no time,” Astral says, his tone urgent. “Yuma, come here.”

“My friends!” Yuma screams.

“Yuma!” Astral screams back. He throws himself at her and she flies to the ground, landing hard. Astral covers her with his body, and with a roar the likes of which Yuma has never heard, the building collapses.

Yuma is sure that she’s as good as dead. She clings to Astral, her eyes shut and her heart pounding, and the seconds feel like hours. When silence falls, Astral moves.

“It’s safe now,” he says gently.

Yuma opens her eyes. It’s dark, but Astral is glowing and she can see that they’re surrounded by rubble, but miraculously unscathed. Astral hovers over her, and he smiles. Yuma reaches up and pokes his cheek. She can touch him.

“How?!” She gasps.

Astral shakes his head. “I have no idea. But I can hear Kotori screaming for you.”

Yuma kicks her legs out, dislodging a bunch of wood, and she kicks and kicks until she breaks through the rubble surrounding her. She launches herself through the space in the debris, and emerges into the cool night air.

“YUMA!” Kotori screams.

Yume wriggles herself out of the hole, and she has help from Ryoga and Kotori as she climbs down the pile of building material. Everyone is shouting at her, but Yuma is looking around.

“Where is that sonuvabitch?” She growls.

Tokunosuke points to the sky and gasps. “Up there!”

They all turn to look. Sure enough, Kite is flying away with his robot-turned-glider attached to his back.

Yuma snorts. “Guess that’s where he got the name Kite.”

Kotori starts to laugh and cry at the same time. “What happened in there?!”

Yuma grins and slings her arms around Kotori’s shoulders, pushing Ryoga away. She leans into Kotori and stage-whispers, “I had a dick.”

Kotori gapes at her. “What?”

Yuma laughs so hard she almost falls over. Cathy rushes to help Kotori hold Yuma up. “It’s true!” Yuma says, “I like, Astral and I did this thing, we like, overlayed, and we turned into something, something called Zexal, and I was a boy! It was only for like five minutes but holy shit, it was so weird. I was wearing these really tight pants and I could feel it! I have no idea how guys walk with that shit, it was horrible I tell you, I am so glad it’s over.”

“Did she hit her head?” Tetsuo mutters.

Ryoga sighs. “No, for some reason I believe her.”

Yuma hoots with laughter. “Help me get home, will ya? I can’t…I can’t walk and laugh at the same time.”


End file.
